Bill Coore

It was the weekend of the first Gulf War, I remember, 1991.

And it was just a, it was an article about, essentially about the state of golf course architecture in 1990, which was before Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw built Sandhills, which was the beginning of the renaissance of great golf course architecture.

And John Sloan read that article and wrote me a letter, and that was the kind of start of our business really.

So, so it goes back to- You know, Steve Perkin giving me 600 words space in The Sunday Age every week.

Okay.

In particular, Coore and Crenshaw and Gil Hanse love a good boundary hole, and they're willing to risk the dissatisfaction of score-sensitive players or lawsuit-sensitive owners or, or just overall sensitive data boys to bring out of bounds into play as a hazard.

And, and they've been very inspired by these older holes that, that, that we're gonna talk about.

So I think the best way probably to understand how out of bounds can be used effectively in golf course design is to look at a few examples.

But there were these old, ugly fences that defined the property boundaries.

Great.

So Bill Coore just said, "What the hell, I'm gonna use the old ugly fences.

That, [laughs] that's gonna be, that's gonna be part of my golf course." Most golf architects would have dug them up, replaced them with something else.

But, like, I, I think about that hole all the time.

It's a, a Bill Coore, Ben Crenshaw, uh, golf course-

Yeah

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Yeah.

Um, and so th- and at the last minute, Bill and Ben were interested in the, in the project, so they, they won the job.

But we stayed in contact with the client, um, stayed friends, and I heard through a, a contact that Shady Oaks were looking to renovate, and I rang our contact at, um, Trinity Forest, and he happened to be standing next to, um, Bill Coore in a bunker.

And they were chatting, and Bill said, "Well, I know the pro at Shady Oaks.

His story and his rise to prominence in the golf course architecture field is an incredible one.

Him being from Alberta and having worked for Pete Dye and Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw in the past, he really learned from the best and I'm sure that, you know, once Cabot Revelstoke opens next year that, you know, he's likely to have four courses in the top 20 in Canada, right? So I just think he's a master at utilizing the land that's presented to him in its natural state and finding that routing that fits the terrain best.

I think that he builds fun courses that typically don't punish you like severely off the tee.

but, you know, challenge you into the greens, on and around the greens.